In order to prevent tyranny, then, keeping arms and practicing their use had to be a civic duty and a legally protected individual right. They believed a widely-exercised individual right to keep arms was necessary as a civic function, for the good of society as a whole, and of course believed that people with arms, like anyone else, were subject to law, to civilization, and to basic rules of behavior, and had duties as citizens to protect each other's freedom and safety. However, these were obligations whose existence did not depend on the particular government that the people had chosen. In fact, the government was subject to these things just as much as individuals were. Individualism taken too far could undermine democracy and make society vulnerable to despotism.
The passions of men and their Intellectual life would be substantially modified by democracy. Under pressure from individual autonomy, opinions would be relativized, mores softened. Public opinion becomes the …show more content…
Thus, they developed a system of
"checks and balances" to prevent any one of the three separate branches of the government from becoming dominant. The checks and balances included in the Constitution ensure that the government will never become too centralized. Thus, it is obvious that the very foundation upon which this nation was constructed, the Constitution, blocks any of the three branches from dominating the other two. And while it is true that government has become more centralized than the framers of the Constitution had probably planned, it is still far from the monarchy of England. The Separation of
Powers devised by the framers of the Constitution was designed to do one primary thing: to prevent the majority from ruling with an iron fist. For example, the President appoints judges and departmental secretaries. But these appointments must be approved by the Senate. The Congress can pass a law, but the President can veto it. The Supreme Court can rule a law to be unconstitutional, but the Congress, with the States, can amend the
Constitution. Individualism breeds fragmentation and brings about disconnectivity and this is in complete contradiction with the